Thoughts on Life, Love, Politics, Hypocrisy and Coming Out in Mid-Life

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Oil Price Drops Raise Fears of Unrest From Venezuela to Iraq to Russia

For years - actually decades - oil producing countries (think OPEC) have played a game of economic blackmail on non-oil producing nations, worked to keep oil prices high and enjoyed power and influence that under any other standard they did not deserve. The side effect that they seemingly never thought through was that over time, such blackmail (i) made exploration and production feasible in places it had never existed, (ii) made secondary and tertiary recovery economically practicable, and (iii) made alternate fuels attractive and more competitive. The end result has been more worldwide production and falling oil prices - and revenues that have often propped up failed regimes. As a piece in the New York Times notes, the chickens could be about to come home to roost as falling prices are setting the stage for possible political unrest. Here are article excerpts:

Oil,
the lifeblood of many countries that produce and sell it, appears to be
rapidly turning into an ever-cheaper economic curse.

A year ago, the international price per barrel of oil was about $103. By Monday, the price was about $42, roughly 6 percent lower than on Friday.

In oil-endowed Iraq,
where an Islamic State insurgency and fractious sectarian politics are
growing threats, a new source of instability erupted this month with
violent protests
over the government’s failure to provide reliable electricity and
explain what has been done with all the promised petroleum money.

In Russia, a leading oil producer, consumers are now paying far more for imports, largely because of their currency’s plummeting value.

In Nigeria and Venezuela,
which rely almost completely on oil exports, fears of unrest and
economic instability are building.

In Ecuador, where oil revenue has
fallen by nearly half since last year, tens of thousands of
demonstrators pour into the streets every week, angered by the
government’s economic policies.

Even in wealthy Saudi Arabia, where the ruling family spends oil money
lavishly to preserve its legitimacy, the government has been burning
through roughly $10 billion a month in foreign exchange holdings to help
pay expenses, and it is borrowing in the financial markets for the
first time since 2007. Other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf that are
dependent on oil exports, including Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, are
facing fiscal deficits for the first time in two decades.

[N]ew anxieties about frailties in China,
the world’s most voracious consumer of energy, have raised fears that
the price of oil, now 30 percent lower than it was just a few months
ago, could remain depressed far longer than even the most pessimistic
projections, and do even deeper damage to oil exporters.

Although
the price drop has most directly hurt oil exporters, it also may signal
a new period of global economic fragility that could hurt all countries
— an anxiety that already has been evident in the gyrating stock
markets.

The price drop also has become an indirect element in the course of Syria’s
civil war and other points of global tension. Countries that once could
use their oil wealth as leverage, like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia,
may no longer have as much influence, some political analysts said.
Iran, which once asserted it could withstand the antinuclear embargo of
its oil by the West, appeared to have rethought that calculation in
reaching an agreement on its nuclear activities last month.

[W]hile
lower oil prices stimulate economies of consuming countries, a
protracted decline carries many unanticipated consequences — starting
with the economic weakness in developing countries that buy increasing
amounts of goods from the United States and others in the industrialized
world.

A
supply glut has been evident for some time, driven partly by a vast
increase in Saudi production and a growing energy self-sufficiency in
the United States, which was once heavily reliant on Middle East oil.

Saudi
Arabia not only is producing a record amount, but also is increasing
the number of rigs drilling for future production. And its Gulf allies,
the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, are following suit. . . . all the exporters in the Middle East are struggling with each other to
protect Asian markets, now that the United States is using much less of
their oil.

The
global glut is likely to worsen if the nuclear deal with Iran is
approved, potentially releasing as much as one million more barrels onto
the 94-million-barrel-a-day global market in a year or so. Iran’s
oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, has made no secret about his
country’s intentions. “We will be raising our oil production at any
cost, and we have no other alternative,” he was quoted Sunday in Iran’s
state-run news media as saying.

The
big change in recent years has been the surge of United States oil
production, adding more than four million barrels a day to global
supplies. But in recent months the oversupply has been driven primarily
by the Saudis, who have flooded the market in what economists regard as a
deliberate attempt to drive down the price so that other high-cost
producers can no longer compete — most notably the Americans.

“The hemorrhaging of government budgets reliant on oil will force
dramatic cuts in spending or dangerous increases in borrowing, if not
both,” Mr. Goldwyn said. “The countries without significant foreign
exchange reserves are most at risk, and they include Nigeria, Angola,
Algeria, Venezuela
and Iraq. The countries which need to sustain investment to maintain
political legitimacy need to be worried, and that’s Brazil, Russia and
even Iran.”

[A] longer-term worry about possible miscalculations by Saudi Arabia, on
both the duration and magnitude of the oil price drop.

“With
a burgeoning population looking for jobs, education and health care
every day,” she said, “the expensive social contract between the royal
family and Saudi citizens will get more difficult, and eventually
impossible, to sustain if oil prices do not recover.”

Past greed, arrogance and shortsightedness may well upset the political apple cart in many countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Russia.

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Out gay attorney in a committed relationship; formerly married and father of three wonderful children; sometime activist and political/news junkie; survived coming out in mid-life and hope to share my experiences and reflections with others.
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